The film was a box office success, despite receiving mixed reviews from critics. It was released on December 19, 2008, opening at No. 1 at the box office in its first weekend with $18.3 million and was then released on December 26, 2008 in the United Kingdom going straight to the top of the box office in its first weekend after release. Production for the film began in October 2007 in Los Angeles.

Contents

Plot[edit]

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Bank loan officer Carl Allen (Jim Carrey) has become withdrawn since his divorce from ex-wife Stephanie. Routinely ignoring his friends Pete (Bradley Cooper) and Rooney (Danny Masterson), he has an increasingly negative outlook on his life. He subsequently misses Pete's engagement party. An irate Pete turns up at his house and berates him, telling him that he will end up completely lonely if he does not change his life. Coincidentally, an old colleague suggests that he goes to a motivational "Yes!" seminar with him, which encourages its attendants to seize the opportunity to say "Yes!". Carl decides to attend the seminar and meets inspirational guru Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp), who publicly browbeats him into making a covenant with himself. Carl reluctantly promises to stop being a "No Man" and vows to answer "Yes!" to every opportunity, request, or invitation that presents itself thereafter.

After the seminar, saying yes to a homeless man's request only leaves Carl stranded in Elysian Park. Disillusioned, he hikes to a gas station where he meets Allison (Zooey Deschanel), an unorthodox young woman. She gives him a ride back to his car on her scooter and kisses him before leaving. After this positive experience, Carl feels more optimistic about saying yes. However, he refuses oral sex from his elderly neighbor Tillie (Fionnula Flanagan), which results in falling down the stairs and almost getting attacked by a dog. Seeing the repercussions of saying no, he goes back to Tillie. While initially disgusted with the thought, Carl is ultimately pleasured by Tillie and thoroughly enjoys his time spent with her.

Carl starts to seize every opportunity that comes his way. He renews his friendship with Pete and Rooney, builds up a bond with his boss, Norman, assists Pete's fiancée, Lucy (Sasha Alexander), with her bridal shower, attends Korean language classes, and much more. Saying yes constantly works to Carl's advantage. He earns a corporate promotion at work and, making use of his guitar lessons, plays Third Eye Blind's song "Jumper" to persuade a man not to commit suicide. Accepting a band flyer outside of a coffee shop, he sees an idiosyncratic band called Munchausen by Proxy whose lead singer turns out to be Allison. He is charmed by her quirkiness; she is charmed by his spontaneity and the two begin dating.

As their relationship develops, Carl and Allison meet at the airport for a spontaneous weekend excursion. Having decided to take the first plane out of town, regardless of its destination, they end up in Lincoln, Nebraska, where they bond more. As they take shelter from rain, Allison asks Carl to move in with her and he hesitantly agrees. While checking in for the return flight, Carl and Allison are detained by FBI agents who have profiled him as a potential terrorist because he has taken flying lessons, studied Korean, approved a loan to a fertilizer company, met an Iranian, and bought plane tickets at the last minute. Pete, his attorney, travels to Nebraska to explain Carl's odd habits, lessons, and decisions. As she finds out about Carl's motivational covenant, Allison begins to doubt whether his commitment to her was ever sincere. Deciding that she can no longer trust him, Allison leaves Carl and refuses to return his phone calls.

Carl's life takes a turn for the worse and he almost forgets about Lucy's shower. He manages to arrange a major surprise shower, set his friend Norm up with Soo-Mi (Vivian Bang), a Korean girl, and Rooney with Tillie. After the party, Carl receives a tearful phone call from Stephanie, whose new boyfriend has walked out on her. When Carl goes to Stephanie's apartment to comfort her, she kisses him and asks him to spend the night with her. After Carl emphatically says no, his luck takes a turn for the worse and he decides to end his commitment to the covenant.

Carl goes to the convention center and hides in the backseat of Terrence's convertible so that he can beg to be released from the covenant. Carl emerges as Terrence drives off, and an oncoming vehicle collides with the startled and distracted Terrence. The two are taken to a hospital. After Carl recovers consciousness, Terrence tells Carl that there was no covenant. The starting point was merely to open Carl's mind to other possibilities, not to permanently take away his ability to say no if he needed to. Freed from this restraint, Carl finds Allison teaching a sports-photography lesson and admits that he is not ready to move in with her just yet, but that he genuinely loves her, and they reconcile with a French kiss (with people in Allison's photography lesson subsequently taking pictures of them making out).

At the end of the movie, Carl and Allison are seen donating a truckload of clothes to a local homeless shelter. Cutting to the scene of the "Yes!" seminar, Terrence is seen walking onstage to several hundred naked audience members. It is implied that the participants have said yes to donating their clothes to charity.

Halfway through the credits, Carl and Allison are seen donning 32-wheel roller suits and racing down a hillside. The suits are fictionalized as invented by one of the people Carl had approved a loan with. The suits are a real life invention of the French designer Jean-Yves Blondeau.[2]

Production[edit]

Yes Man is based on a memoir of the same name by British humourist Danny Wallace. The book tells of the 6-month period in which he committed himself to saying 'Yes' to everything based on a brief conversation with a stranger he met on the bus. Danny Wallace also has a cameo in the film, in the final bar-scene of the movie, in which he is speaking to someone behind Danny Masterson.[3]

Jim Carrey declined an upfront salary for his role in the film. He was instead paid 36.2% of the film's gross after its production and marketing costs were recovered.[4]

During shooting of a scene where Carrey's character bungee jumps off a bridge, Carrey interrupted and asked to do the stunt himself.[5] Carrey stated to the stunt double that he intended to do it in one take. When he jumps off, he is seen taking out a cell phone for the scene.

While shooting the scene in the bar where Carrey's character turns around into a waitress and falls flat on his back, Carrey executed the stunt incorrectly and fell to the floor harder than he expected, breaking three ribs in the process.[6]

Carrey also mastered basic Korean for a scene. A language coach was hired to help Carrey learn the language accurately. This was the same process for the scenes in which Carrey's character learns to play the guitar; Carrey tried to play during the years of his childhood, but "quit before ever learning a chord". Carrey said in an interview with HBO: "Just learning the basic chords was maybe the most challenging part of any movie I've worked on in my career. Peyton [Reed] even joked about the guitar part being dubbed, or just cut altogether." Reed played the song "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind, which had a high number of digital downloads after the film's theatrical release.[citation needed] After the final date of filming, Carrey "retired" his set guitar, and Deschanel kept it. When asked about this, Carrey said: "I'll never need that, or any guitar ever again; guitar is not for me! Never has been, never will be!"[citation needed]

The film's soundtrack features original music by Munchausen by Proxy, a fictional band named after the Münchausen syndrome by proxy (a psychological disorder). In the film, the band consists of actress Deschanel on lead vocals and the San Francisco-based all-girl band Von Iva, a trio of vocals, keyboards and drums. Von Iva's members collaborated with Deschanel, a singer-songwriter and one half of the duo She & Him, on writing and recording the band's songs for the film.[7][8]Von Iva got the part of the fictional ensemble in the film after the movie's music supervisor, Jonathan Karp, saw the cover of their CD in Amoeba in Hollywood.[9] For the DVD/Blu-ray release of the film, Deschanel and Von Iva filmed a spoof MTV music show-style documentary on the band for which they filmed mock music videos for several of the songs; the home video release also includes full-length performances by the group that were not included in the film.

The soundtrack also features nine songs by Eels, including a brand-new song entitled "Man Up".[10]

The introduction music at the beginning of the movie from Carrey's ringtone comes from the song "Separate Ways" by Journey. It is also featured when Carrey's character bails out from the hospital to catch the joggography at 6 am.

Reception[edit]

Critical reception[edit]

Yes Man generated mixed reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 45%, based on 152 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3. The site's consensus reads, "Jim Carrey's comic convulsions are the only bright spots in this otherwise dim and predictable comedy."[11] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 46 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[12]

Many critics thought that its plot was too similar to Carrey's 1997 work, Liar Liar.[13]

In his review for The Miami Herald, Rene Rodriguez wrote, "Yes Man is fine as far as Jim Carrey comedies go, but it's even better as a love story that just happens to make you laugh,"[14] while Kyle Smith of The New York Post countered in his review that, "The first time I saw Yes Man, I thought the concept was getting kind of stale toward the end. As it turns out, that was only the trailer."[15]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film 2 stars out of 4.[16]

Box office[edit]

Despite the mixed critical reception, the film opened No. 1 in its first weekend at the US box office with $18.3 million,[17] and went straight to the top of the UK box office in its first weekend after release.[18]